Hellbenders — James Axler

POINT OF NO RETURN
Out of the ashes of the conflagration that savaged mankind two centuries ago, Deathlands was born--a tortured testament to a world long gone. Vet, in this kill-or-be-killed world where justice is the way of the past and blood is law, hope is the last refuge of the doomed. For Ryan Cawdor, driven by a warrior's instinct to survive, it's a world that exacts a devil's bargain: the struggle for daily existence in return for a chance to forge a better life.

VANGUARD
Emerging from a gateway into a redoubt filled with preDark technology, Ryan and his band hope to unlock some of the secrets of postnuclear America. But the fortified redoubt is under the control of a half-mad former sec man hell-bent on vengeance, who orders Ryan and the others to jump-start his private war against two local barons. Under the harsh and pitiless glare of the rad-blasted desert sun, the companions fight to see another day, whatever it brings....

In the Deathlands, the condemned shall inherit the earth....